I Told You So. Somebody Hide the Gatorade.

Payback politics is eating itself alive. Naturally, I’m using an article about overconfidence to remind everybody I was right.

Sep 28, 2026

An Email With Something to Read

This one is for the readers who helped build Substack and somehow became an afterthought. I’m talking about you, the people who open the email.

You signed up to read. Somewhere along the way following a writer started coming with homework. Catch the livestream. Watch the replay. Find the clip. Meanwhile, there you were with an open email and the perfectly reasonable expectation that it might contain something to read.

XVOA kept that pipeline open through the Reader’s Cut. But as I ease back into publishing after being away for a minute, I’m setting even that format aside for this one. I wanted to sit down and write directly to you again so bear with me.

TLDR

My January 9 essay argued that payback politics would turn Republican advantages into self-inflicted damage, as the appetite for punishment overtook the judgment required to hold on to power. [1]
Atlanta lost Super Bowl LI after leading New England 28–3, demonstrating how unnecessary risks can help turn an overwhelming advantage into a collapse people will remind you about forever. [2]
Karl Rove said he would vote for Democrat Jon Rosenthal after Bo French’s racist commentary about South Asian Texas football fans, turning a winning football game into a Republican argument about abandoning their own nominee. [3]
Republican María Elvira Salazar said Trump’s immigration policies had gone too far and Hispanic supporters felt betrayed, putting the warning inside the coalition he needs to hold together. [4]
Trump’s ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico produced collective resistance and a temporary court order restoring access, giving competing newsrooms a reason to coordinate against the administration trying to punish them. [5][6]

Restack this and send it to somebody who remembers the victory speeches. The January warning and what happened afterward belong in this same conversation.

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I Kept the January Receipt

Back on January 9, in Payback Always Leaves a Crime Scene⁠, I argued that the appetite for revenge would lead people with enormous power into decisions that undermined that power. They would keep escalating because making somebody suffer felt better than knowing when to stop. [1]

Now I want to put that warning beside what has happened since. I also want a little credit for recognizing the pattern before its consequences became harder to ignore. There. I said it. I promised to come back stronger. I made no promises about coming back humble.

That January essay came out of Minneapolis, after Renee Good’s killing and the administration’s rush to defend it. I wrote about power that injures somebody, supplies a story to justify the injury, then demands that everyone accept the story. Each challenge becomes another enemy to punish. Eventually, leadership is spending its authority defending the consequences of its own conduct.

“Your biggest threat is your own unforced error.” That was my warning. Republicans had enormous institutional advantages. They also had an audience that expected those advantages to be used to make somebody pay. Keeping that audience satisfied could require decisions that made governing harder. Ya’ll, that was the problem I was pointing at.

Atlanta Would Like a Word

In the same essay, I reached for Atlanta’s collapse in Super Bowl LI. The Falcons led 28–3 and lost 34–28. Even if your main interest in football is the halftime band at an HBCU homecoming, you understand that kind of lead. A late sack and holding penalty helped take Atlanta out of scoring position. New England took advantage. [2]

The Gatorade is what players dump over a winning coach. Any spades player knows the person talking the most s*** halfway through a hand is volunteering to have the final score read back to him very slowly. I recognize the danger to my own position here. Keep reading.

The problem with building a movement around payback is that winning never quite pays the bill. You won the election, but somebody is still protesting. You got the power, but somebody is still laughing at you. The demand is for submission, and there are millions of people who have no intention of supplying it. So every act of resistance becomes an excuse for another escalation. The people promising to restore order keep manufacturing the disorder they need to justify themselves.

Apparently, Even Football Needed a Racial Grievance

Consider Texas Republican Bo French. He posted racist commentary about South Asian students celebrating a University of Texas football victory, treating their appearance as evidence they were foreigners displacing Americans. Karl Rove subsequently said he would vote for French’s Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal. French doubled down and questioned his Republican critics’ conservatism. Trump attacked Rove. [3]

The students’ belonging was never Rove’s to award. His announced defection matters because it exposes a cost inside the Republican coalition. French managed to turn a photograph of people cheering for Texas into an argument among Republicans about whether their own nominee deserved their votes. C’mon. There was a perfectly serviceable football celebration available. He needed a racial grievance.

The Voters Were Supposed to Applaud

Then came Republican Representative María Elvira Salazar’s September 17 campaign message to Trump. His immigration policies had gone too far, she said. Hispanic voters who helped elect him felt betrayed. That is her assessment, delivered while seeking reelection. She was publicly warning the president about damage to support his party needed. [4]

In January, I wrote: “Every act of cruelty performed for applause becomes a clip that builds the coalition you were trying to prevent.” And then there’s the little matter of the electorate. Trump’s approval stood at 32 percent in the September 17–20 Reuters/Ipsos poll, with Democrats ahead 43–35 among registered voters on congressional preference. His war against Iran keeps sending higher fuel bills home. [11] Apparently, we’re all expected to chip in for the victory party.

By August, senior Republicans were privately anticipating losing the House, possibly the Senate. [12] A “fait accompli” mood, courtesy of their own president. Cook now has Republicans on track to lose the House and Senate control at a toss-up. [13][14] I’m trying to conduct my victory dance with the dignity this moment deserves. It’s difficult when their own side keeps requesting the music.

That’s why I read Trump’s election maneuvers as an effort to cheat his way around the verdict he fears. His administration tried to impose new mail-ballot requirements that would have allowed the Postal Service to refuse ballot delivery to states that didn’t comply. The Supreme Court kept those restrictions blocked for the midterms on September 14. [15]

C’mon. When the man at the spades table starts rewriting the rules halfway through the hand, you don’t need to see his cards. That January phrase, “panic disguised as aggression,” keeps finding work. [1]

The Last Word, Now With No Audio

And then there was the press ban. On September 18, Trump excluded CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House over coverage he disliked. The television pool suspended its shared coverage. On September 24, a judge temporarily ordered the outlets’ access restored. [5][6]

The White House promoted its own livestream as an alternative. At the helipad ceremony, the audio was inaudible. A presidency demanding the last word had arranged a broadcast where nobody could hear it. C’mon. [5]

The original essay described leaders who “stop playing to win the long game and start playing to satisfy the crowd in the stands.” Here was the performance, followed by its cost: punishment of selected newsrooms helped produce collective resistance and a court order against the administration. He wanted control over how the press covered him. He gave competing organizations a reason to coordinate against him.

Supremacy Keeps Calling the Same Play

The January essay’s Reconstruction discussion asked what happens when the struggle over power overwhelms the work required to make freedom durable. Black historical memory gives us reasons to study what powerful people do after they believe the argument has been settled. [1]

The Confederacy tried to secure slavery through secession and war. Its defeat helped destroy the institution it existed to preserve. [7][8] Jim Crow’s defenders used public violence to enforce their authority; organizers turned that violence into evidence that helped mobilize the country against them. [9] The Third Reich’s racial ambitions drove a war of conquest that ended with Allied armies destroying the regime. [10] Those victories required people to fight, at terrible cost. The systems’ own choices helped produce the conditions of their defeat.

Payback politics carries the machinery of its own collapse. White supremacy keeps providing the fuel. That is the pattern I see in MAGA’s unraveling. Supremacy makes the possibility of correction feel like an insult. When people believe domination is their due, a limit becomes something they must punish. They can possess extraordinary power and still keep reaching for the next unnecessary confrontation.

A Brief Pause for My Victory Dance

I called that “panic disguised as aggression” in January. I’m watching the examples accumulate now. Ya’ll can allow me a small “you better say that” from the back of the room before the ushers remind me other people need this microphone.

Being right about destructive people carries a lousy reward. People still have to live with the damage. Elections still have to be won, rights defended, and openings turned into lasting change. I want this return to your inbox to give us somewhere to think through that work together. For the moment, I have my January receipt and a little satisfaction. Keep the damn lid on that cooler.

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